


i think i've thought myself to death

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: I wrote this in an insomnia induced haze at 5am so if it's not great uhhhhhh idk that's why, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, inspired by another fic I'm linking in the notes!!, lup and Lucretia have a bit of a chat directly after s&s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 08:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16323122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: everyone's exhausted, after Story and Song, and getting some much needed restexcept the lich, who can't, and one other(title from "Come With Me Now" by KONGOS)





	i think i've thought myself to death

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [is it too late to come on home?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15177857) by [words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunmetal_Crown/pseuds/words-writ-in-starlight). 



> Inspired by "is it too late to come on home" by words-writ-in-starlight (which let's be honest is a much better fic lmao)

A full day and night after the end of Story and Song, nightfall finds the weary victors loosely assembled on the former battlefield outside of Neverwinter. The moon base floats above, abandoned for the moment after the truly legendary party, the triumphant inhabitants of this world wishing to come to rest on the very ground they fought for, the solidity of the earth itself reminding them of their final victory.

The clerics rest at last, having saved everyone they could, and ushering those they could not into the welcoming arms of the Raven Queen.

The warriors too are at peace, bugbears sleeping alongside dryads alongside Bodetts, dwarves and humans and orcs and dragonborn and all the rest all together.

They sleep together after partying together, harder than has ever before been seen on Faerun, but even the most banger of ragers has to give way to rest eventually.

And our heroes?

Magnus serves as a pillow, as was his habit during their impossible journey. His snores rumble through the air, not even registering with his family scattered around and over him.

Taako is splayed out across much of Magnus’s stomach, one arm wrapped around a slumbering Barry. Both of them unable to hold their most loved woman, they are content, in sleep at least, with holding onto their brother. Taako also has a firm grasp on Kravitz, who is currently happily proving himself wrong, with his earlier insistence that he doesn’t sleep. Angus curls between the reaper and the elf, pillowed on Magnus’s shoulder and wrapped in Kravitz’s feathery cloak.

Merle rests against Magnus’s legs, leaving the fighter’s other side open. His snores mingle with Magnus’s, sounding rather like a symphony of fantasy chainsaws. His children are nestled around him, having come in from Goldcliff the day after the final battle. Even Mookie is quiet in sleep, his snores echoing his father’s but not nearly matching their volume.

Davenport also lies next to Merle, hands drifting together in sleep, tired enough to put aside a decade’s worth of pent up shame and anger to join his crew for the well-loved and newly remembered comfort of a cuddle pile.

Lup drifts above them all, unable to sleep in her lich form, a silent, red-robed guardian. She smiles, albeit with no face, watching her family plus extras finally get some well-earned rest.

But what of the seventh?

The director, the lonely journal keeper, the woman who loved so fiercely she damned her own family for over a decade, to loneliness and pain and joys alike.

Or just… Lucretia.

She is young, she is old, she is far more ancient than she has any right to be.

And she sits alone, away from the dim light of the flickering campfire sinking towards ash, staring up at the stars. Her ornate robes are discarded, leaving her in a simple blue shirt and pants, Magnus’s oversized red IPRE jacket absently clutched around her shoulders.

She doesn’t move when Lup floats over to her.

The lich settles beside her sister, looking sideways at the old-young face, the world-weary golden eyes shining in the soft light of the stars.

“You should sleep, Lucretia,” Lup says gently, after a long silence.

“They’re still here,” is the response. Lucretia lifts a slim, scarred hand and traces a constellation, one that truly belongs to a night sky a hundred years away. “After all that.”

“Course they are,” Lup says. “We _won_ , babe. We did it.”

Lucretia lets her hand drop.

They sit in silence once again.

Lup is opening her nonexistent mouth, again to urge her back to the fire and their family, when Lucretia speaks again.

“I knew you were in there,” she says, toneless.

Lup goes still.

“In the staff,” Lucretia continues, still staring upwards at the sky of the world they -- she -- saved. “I had some suspicions, after the train, but when you burned your name into the wall…” she trails off, and Lup notices her fingers twisting in the cool grass. “I didn’t know what to do, i couldn’t let you out on while still on the moon base, my ward would have… and I couldn’t get the staff away from Taako long enough to…”

Lup is still, drawing on all her patience acquired during that hellish prison of her own making, and even before, during their miserable, joyous, mutilating century. She takes in deep breaths she doesn’t need, aware of Lucretia trembling beside her.

“There’s nothing I can say or do to make up for what I’ve done,” Lucretia says, and her voice is thick with tears held back for twelve long years, compounded with pain and loneliness and longing for a family she took away from herself. “I know that, I--”

Lup sighs, then, releasing the burst of anger clawing its way up from her missing chest. That was always the problem with lichdom, you could never quite keep yourself from thinking in terms of a physicality you no longer had.

“Lucretia,” she begins, “There’s--” she breaks off too, longing for a body, craving the feel of the grass beneath her toes, for the ability to scream and cry and physically rage, to grab her sister and shake her and hug her both. “We’ve all lost so much,” she settles on, craning her headless hood up towards the night sky. She sees Lucretia do the same, catching the glistening tear tracks running down her face. Lucretia doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“I looked,” Lucretia says softly, and it spills out of her now, a frantic stream, like she’s seeking absolution, or the end. “I looked, Lup, for so long, I was alone before I formed the Bureau, even with the people I met, and I couldn’t bear the thought that you might be too, and,” she drags in a shuddering breath. “And when I found you? When I finally figured it out? I was too cowardly to set you free.”

Lup watches her openly now, not bothering to hide her gaze in the sea of stars above. Lucretia remains looking up, tears flowing unregarded.

“I wasn’t planning on this,” Lucretia adds, voice small and tired, a ragged thing, weighed down almost to nothing. “On still… being here. This would be a much neater story without me in it.”

“Don’t you dare,” and now Lup lets the anger rush, anger for Lucretia as much as at her. She conjures a Mage Hand, glowing purple, their old color, and grasps Lucretia’s face with it, turning it towards her with little gentleness. Lucretia doesn’t resist, her golden, nearly hysterical eyes finding Lup’s nonexistent ones, and the quiet despair and weariness is almost more terrifying than those black curtains. “Don’t you dare,” Lup repeats, leaning in towards Lucretia.

“They hate me,” Lucretia whispers, and she sounds young, oh so young, young as none of them have been since long before landing on Faerun. “And they should. You should too. I thought I was ready, but,” she gulps wetly, breath ragged in her throat.

“We don’t hate you,” Lup says firmly, infusing her voice with as much conviction as she can, the conviction that helped sustain her in that dark-curtained place. She knows Taako would adamantly disagree, and she equally knows the deep well of love underneath that hurt. “We’re together again, and that means all of us,” she says. “The whole family.”

“I don’t think I know what that means anymore.”

“I’ll tell you,” Lup says, and conjures another purple Mage Hand to cradle Lucretia’s face. “You’re our baby sister, babe, and we love you, and none of us is going anywhere. And that also means,” and the Mage Hands poke and prod at Lucretia now. “That you’re part of family cuddle piles. If I can’t get in there yet then you’re going to have to for me.”

“Lup, I don’t know…”

But Lup is already tugging her towards the sleeping bodies, a third Mage Hand poking at Magnus, who half wakes up, blinking blearily at the two woman standing (or floating) over the pile of multiverse saviors.

“Got the last one for ya, Mags,” Lup says.

“About time,” Magnus mumbles, and lifts one strong arm. He pulls a quietly protesting Lucretia down to tuck her against his side, clasping her tight. Merle wakes up vaguely, pats at Lucretia’s ankles, and goes back to sleep.

Effectively trapped, Lucretia gazes up at Lup.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“I know,” Lup whispers back. “Go to sleep, Lucretia. You deserve that much.”

Golden eyes fill with tears again, but exhaustion and too many powerful, conflicting emotions to count win the day, and Lucretia sleeps at last, surrounded by a family made whole once again.

Lup floats above them all, watching her family sleep, and feels a smile break across her lack of a face.

There will be fights, and tears, and the messy business of healing still to come.

But, she thinks as she leans back against nothing and gazes back up at the sky, they sure did end up alright, in the end.

The stars are beautiful tonight.

 


End file.
